Home made fondant way too soft

[fullframe45]

Can anyone tell me where im going wrong. I have tried using the recipie off the cushman site ,but it always turns out watery and i cant do owt with it.
I am only using sugar and water,nothing more and getting the correct temp as stated and boiling for 5 mins.
I know someone will say ,just buy it ready made. Well i already have done ,but i have a lot of sugar and i want to crack this .

 

[Speybee]

I have never made my own fondant as I buy ready made ( life too short to peel a mushroom and all that)
Here is a recipe from Rachel Allen
Of course avoid the vanilla and food colouring.
Jury is out, for the addition of egg white, as to whether it would harm your bees, but the egg white is a stiffening agent, nothing more, so could be omitted.

 

[beeno]

It takes more than 5min for the temperature to reach 234°F. Around 45min+ for me. Then you cool it by putting saucepan in cold water. When you see it beginning to turn white you start stirring with wooden spoon until it is too stiff to carry on. The I put it onto foil and roller it out to shape of hive about 1-2cm thick and cover it with cling film. Let it cool and slide it off my varroa tray having made a few slits in the cling film for the bees to get to it. honeybeesuit.com has a recipe which I thought was on this site but cannot find it.

 

[Murox]

Can anyone tell me where im going wrong. I have tried using the recipie off the cushman site ,but it always turns out watery and i cant do owt with it.
I am only using sugar and water,nothing more and getting the correct temp as stated and boiling for 5 mins.
I know someone will say ,just buy it ready made. Well i already have done ,but i have a lot of sugar and i want to crack this .

Try adding some glucose syrup in your recipe.

 

[fullframe45]

Tried boiling today at three different times 5 10 and 15 minutes and can only get heat up to 114 c almost soft ball whatever that is.
Anyway its all still like porridge mess everywhere ,wife going mad with drips allover the floor and wasps homing in.
Had to shut our two doxies in front room to stop em getting stung.
Another lesson learnt. No more fondant making for me again.LOL.

 

[Ian123]

Can anyone tell me where im going wrong. I have tried using the recipie off the cushman site ,but it always turns out watery and i cant do owt with it.
I am only using sugar and water,nothing more and getting the correct temp as stated and boiling for 5 mins.
I know someone will say ,just buy it ready made. Well i already have done ,but i have a lot of sugar and i want to crack this .

Are you making fondant or candy? Depends how wet/sticky your efforts are but why not just add some powdered sugar. Warning it does take a lot to dry anything out though so try a small test batch!

 

[pargyle]

When I've made it (and like others have said ... life's too short !) I have used this recipe ...

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/drought-and-winter-feeding.44746/#post-676507
Worked for me ... it's always a little bit more sloppy than bakers fondant but if you want is a bit stiffer add some icing sugar at the rolling and kneeding stage. You can make your own icing sugar from granulated with a food processor - some recipes suggest that you start with powdered sugar rather than granulated.

 

[Hachi]

£11.25 for 12.5Kg takes about 4 minutes to order. Why!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[enrico]

£11.25 for 12.5Kg takes about 4 minutes to order. Why!!!!!!!!!!!

Honey £1 a jar......why!!!!!!!!! Because we can!

 

[Speybee]

£11.25 for 12.5Kg takes about 4 minutes to order. Why!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a saying we use up here.......Buy cheap, buy dear.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

There is a saying we use up here.......Buy cheap, buy dear.

but why would that apply here

Or are you one of these who instantly equates expense to quality?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

£11.25 for 12.5Kg takes about 4 minutes to order. Why!!!!!!!!!!!

And you have to add the energy cost (both financially and environmentally) of boiling the buggery out of it

 

[pargyle]

And you have to add the energy cost (both financially and environmentally) of boiling the buggery out of it

Been there, done that, life is too short ..... there are some things I will happily do to save a few quid by using my time ... making my own fondant is not one of them !

 

[Murox]

Tried boiling today at three different times 5 10 and 15 minutes and can only get heat up to 114 c almost soft ball whatever that is.
Anyway its all still like porridge mess everywhere ,wife going mad with drips allover the floor and wasps homing in.
Had to shut our two doxies in front room to stop em getting stung.
Another lesson learnt. No more fondant making for me again.LOL.

Found this recipe on the web yonks ago; I used to use it (I just buy it now) it scales up ok.
2lbs sugar
1/2 pint or less water
1 tablespoon liquid glucose (The glucose helps to keep it flexible)

When the mixture boils it takes a few minutes for the water to evaporate. Then the boil "slows down" but the temperature will rise quite quickly. "Slow boil" for 1 minute and test - and or check the temperature.between 115 - 116 deg.C.

 

[Speybee]

but why would that apply here

Or are you one of these who instantly equates expense to quality?

Good morning JBM
I don’t equate this instantly, I’m more of an affordable luxury type of individual and I’ve found that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
I have found from experience, there have been corners cut, either in the poor working conditions of the workforce, the quality or robustness of the materials or the design of the product.

I tend to be what is quaintly called in retail.....a repeat customer who tends to favour quality over quantity.

For example I certainly would not purchase Duchy honey or Duchy anything for that matter, as that is way off the scale regarding retail price ( and I am not much impressed by how much chat the local flora gets either) but I would treat myself to a jar of local honey, pre beekeeping era, nor would I waste my money on a pair of branded trainers as a trainer is ....well it’s a trainer and I would choose leather material and fit from Clarks sale, instead.

Nor have I ever set foot in Primark, instead I prefer ‘a rootle aboot’ in the charity shops and look for well made textiles etc which I wash then repurpose and I have got some cracking secondhand hives and Nucs from a fella in Orkney via the Gumtree, virtually indestructible and they will still be going well after I’ve shuffled off my mortal coil.

Like most folk up here I prefer to keep the moths firmly enclosed in my wee tartan purse

 

[fullframe45]

Thanks for comments and lesson learnt. But this only being my second year and i am one of them people who like to try things out for myself.
We also have that saying buy cheap buy twice and in this case it seems true. But its also good when i can say .Well at least i tried it.
To be honest its quite rare when it works though. LOL

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Good morning JBM
I don’t equate this instantly, I’m more of an affordable luxury type of individual and I’ve found that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
I have found from experience, there have been corners cut, either in the poor working conditions of the workforce, the quality or robustness of the materials or the design of the product.

I tend to be what is quaintly called in retail.....a repeat customer who tends to favour quality over quantity.

For example I certainly would not purchase Duchy honey or Duchy anything for that matter, as that is way off the scale regarding retail price ( and I am not much impressed by how much chat the local flora gets either) but I would treat myself to a jar of local honey, pre beekeeping era, nor would I waste my money on a pair of branded trainers as a trainer is ....well it’s a trainer and I would choose leather material and fit from Clarks sale, instead.

Nor have I ever set foot in Primark, instead I prefer ‘a rootle aboot’ in the charity shops and look for well made textiles etc which I wash then repurpose and I have got some cracking secondhand hives and Nucs from a fella in Orkney via the Gumtree, virtually indestructible and they will still be going well after I’ve shuffled off my mortal coil.

Like most folk up here I prefer to keep the moths firmly enclosed in my wee tartan purse

But you conflated that to implying that fondant at £11.25 for a 12.5 Kg slab is somehow compromising on quality when in fact it's closer to the correct retail price for good quality fondant, not mucked about and nothing added - even the stuff you pay through the nose for because it has a picture of a bee on is identical to the bog standard baker's fondant sold under a variety of brand names for around a tenner and, due to the fact most comes from Belgium, and the international sugar price has risen the price has now inflated significantly from the less than £7.00 a pop we were paying in previous years.
It's an unfortunate fact that many people on here and in general are under the impression that it's fine to pay over the odds for basic stuff like fondant or invert syrup just because including 'Api' into the brand name or the addition of a cartoon bee to the packaging makes it more bee friendly.
In fact, even Bako tried to get in to the act a few years ago by advertising bee centric ready mixed sugar syrup (not invert, just plain 2:1 sugar and water) to it's account holders at a higher cost than I was paying for invert at the time.

 

[Seakitz]

Can anyone tell me where im going wrong. I have tried using the recipie off the cushman site ,but it always turns out watery and i cant do owt with it.
I am only using sugar and water,nothing more and getting the correct temp as stated and boiling for 5 mins.
I know someone will say ,just buy it ready made. Well i already have done ,but i have a lot of sugar and i want to crack this .

The two problems I get with fondant are either too watery (too much water) or too grainy and stiff (sugar not dissolved enough or not beaten enough).
There’s lots of recipes out there with varying proportions of water to sugar. The Cushman one I’ve seen has 300ml to 1 kg sugar, but the one I use is 220 ml water to 1 kg sugar. You really only need enough water to dissolve the sugar and leave the fondant a bit pliable, otherwise you have to boil off the excess.
So my guess would be, use less water to start with. If it won’t quite reach boiling temp of 120C there’s probably still too much water in the mixture.
Second, the beating stage makes some difference. After boiling it, let it cool down a bit, I then put in the kitchen mixer and beat it with a paddle on low for 15 mins till its white and creamy, before pouring into moulds.
But in my experience the bees don’t care much if it’s grainy or hard, they still eat it, but too watery is a pain to handle, so better to err on the side of less water!

 

[Speybee]

But you conflated that to implying that fondant at £11.25 for a 12.5 Kg slab is somehow compromising on quality when in fact it's closer to the correct retail price for good quality fondant, not mucked about and nothing added - even the stuff you pay through the nose for because it has a picture of a bee on is identical to the bog standard baker's fondant sold under a variety of brand names for around a tenner and, due to the fact most comes from Belgium, and the international sugar price has risen the price has now inflated significantly from the less than £7.00 a pop we were paying in previous years.
It's an unfortunate fact that many people on here and in general are under the impression that it's fine to pay over the odds for basic stuff like fondant or invert syrup just because including 'Api' into the brand name or the addition of a cartoon bee to the packaging makes it more bee friendly.
In fact, even Bako tried to get in to the act a few years ago by advertising bee centric ready mixed sugar syrup (not invert, just plain 2:1 sugar and water) to it's account holders at a higher cost than I was paying for invert at the time.

Yes indeedy...I do take your point that in a previous post I admitted to buying Apifondant and thanks to several suggestions including yours, about other suppliers elsewhere in the U.K. ( which I have tucked away for future use next year) I will use.
Up here in the Highlands postage/carriage costs are crippling and for several of us it is cheaper to take the day trip to Newburgh twice a year and buy the Apifondant there, to avoid postage.
But thankfully you and others have kindly shared other sources of fondant.
I know we could use the Google, but the hurdle here for myself, is buying online from a supplier of goods you have never used before and the risk inherenent in getting a dud product.
So recommendations from yourself are welcomed because if you have used the product and it’s been fine then it’s worth considering